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The Supreme Court has again deprecated the conduct of the litigants in flooding it with frivolous litigations, which are choking the dockets as a result of which the matters, which require consideration are delayed.
The Supreme Court on Monday imposed cost of INR 1.5 lakhs on the officials of the Haryana Urban Development Authority for filing frivolous appeals in a dispute pertaining to demand of additional price for the allotment of plot in Hisar.
Noting that the issue was already covered by its judgment in Sanjay Gera vs. Haryana Urban Development Authority & Anr., a bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Rajesh Bindal held,
"Despite this fact being in knowledge of the Appellants, the suit was contested and the same was decreed on 19.08.2008. The matter did not end here, appeal was preferred by the appellant before the First Appellate Court and on failure even before the High Court and thereafter before this Court. For the aforesaid reasons and wasting the time of the Courts at different levels, we deem it appropriate to burden the Appellants with cost of ₹1,00,000/- to be deposited with the Supreme Court Mediation Centre. In addition, the Respondent having been dragged in unnecessary litigation upto this Court deserves to be awarded cost of ₹50,000/-...".
Top Court has further ordered that the said amount shall be recovered from the guilty officers/officials who opined the case to be fit for filing appeal at different levels despite being covered by its judgment.
"The amount spent on litigation would be much more. It is because of impersonal and irresponsible attitude of the officers, who want to put everything to Court and shirk to take decisions. However, still the Appellants had not only filed appeals, resulting in addition to the pendency of cases and also must have spent huge amount on litigation in the form of fee of the counsels and allied expenses...", the division bench has said, coming down heavily on the officials.
It was further held that as number of officer(s)/official(s) must have visited the counsel engaged either at Chandigarh, when the matter was taken up in the High Court and thereafter to the Supreme Court, when the order was challenged before it, that amount was also needed to be calculated and recovered from the guilty officers.
"The amount of cost be deposited in Supreme Court Mediation Centre and paid to the respondent within two months from today and regarding cost of litigation, needful shall be done within six months. Affidavit of compliance to be filed in this Court..", the bench has ordered while dismissing the appeals.
Case Title: Haryana Urban Development Authority & Anr. vs. Jagdeep Singh
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